"Likewise, sometimes a leader needs to step in and resolve bike-shedding conflicts among two equally smart, strongly opinionated engineers who disagree on a core question, and to look for a compromise."
The most effective people I worked for didn't try to dictate the solution to the conflict. They were effective at moving the disagreeing engineers past their conflict. Dictating a solution was always the last resort if the engineers had just "dug in their heals" instead of discussing rationally.
> The most effective people that I worked for didn't try to dictate the solution to the conflict
About China's presumptive next leader, Xi Jinping
His subtle and pragmatic style was seen in the way he handled a landmark power project teetering on the edge of failure in 2002, when he was governor of Fujian, a coastal province. The American company Bechtel and other foreign investors had poured in nearly $700 million. But the investors became mired in a dispute with planning officials.
After ducking foreign executives’ repeated requests for a meeting, Mr. Xi agreed to chat one night in the governor’s compound with an American business consultant on the project whose father had befriended Mr. Xi’s father in the 1940s.
Mr. Xi explained that he could not interfere in a dispute involving other powerful officials. But he showed that he knew the project intimately and supported it, promising to meet the investors “after the two sides have reached an agreement.” That spurred a compromise that allowed the power plant to begin operating.
“I thought, ‘This person is a brilliant politician,’ ” said the consultant, Sidney Rittenberg Jr.
I think Spolsky would agree. And my style is similar to his - Management Fiat is not the way to go, but it is my job to help ask the right questions to move the disagreeing engineers to find the right solution. Sometimes all it takes is having the two folks explain their positions, a la rubber-ducky-debugging (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging)
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"Likewise, sometimes a leader needs to step in and resolve bike-shedding conflicts among two equally smart, strongly opinionated engineers who disagree on a core question, and to look for a compromise."
The most effective people I worked for didn't try to dictate the solution to the conflict. They were effective at moving the disagreeing engineers past their conflict. Dictating a solution was always the last resort if the engineers had just "dug in their heals" instead of discussing rationally.
> The most effective people that I worked for didn't try to dictate the solution to the conflict
About China's presumptive next leader, Xi Jinping
His subtle and pragmatic style was seen in the way he handled a landmark power project teetering on the edge of failure in 2002, when he was governor of Fujian, a coastal province. The American company Bechtel and other foreign investors had poured in nearly $700 million. But the investors became mired in a dispute with planning officials.
After ducking foreign executives’ repeated requests for a meeting, Mr. Xi agreed to chat one night in the governor’s compound with an American business consultant on the project whose father had befriended Mr. Xi’s father in the 1940s.
Mr. Xi explained that he could not interfere in a dispute involving other powerful officials. But he showed that he knew the project intimately and supported it, promising to meet the investors “after the two sides have reached an agreement.” That spurred a compromise that allowed the power plant to begin operating.
“I thought, ‘This person is a brilliant politician,’ ” said the consultant, Sidney Rittenberg Jr.
> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/world/asia/24leader.html
I think Spolsky would agree. And my style is similar to his - Management Fiat is not the way to go, but it is my job to help ask the right questions to move the disagreeing engineers to find the right solution. Sometimes all it takes is having the two folks explain their positions, a la rubber-ducky-debugging (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging)